Meals To Cook

astonaidan

Ok guys, Im going to try up my skills in the culinary field, would anyone recommend something to learn to cook, any suggestion welcome

Wibbs

There's a very good forum here LINKY in the Food and Drink section of Boards. I reckon they'd be a good place to start A.

Just throw yourself into it really is the only real advice. And learn to love it. Start simple and work up. And play with things you would not normally make (dips, dips, dips. I love dips. So many flavors and such potential for variance. Make loads of dips.)

Smitten Kitchen is a good blog to start with though as her stuff tends to be very simple to do. A lot of it is rubbish - but that is true of most food blogs. But I have made about 40% of the stuff on her blog myself and been very happy with it.

Any time you make something a second time or more - vary it. Do not make the same things the same way every time. That way you learn to know what you like - and what the effects of certain modifications have on the end results.

Sleepy

Paella. It's really easy to cook but people are always a bit impressed by it for some reason. I do a variant of Jamie Oliver's seafood paella recipe regularly:

http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/seafood-recipes/paella/

Confucius say

Sleepy wrote: »

Paella. It's really easy to cook but people are always a bit impressed by it for some reason. I do a variant of Jamie Oliver's seafood paella recipe regularly:

http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/seafood-recipes/paella/

It's hard to get it as delicious as the real deal with the kind of burnt crispy rice I find. I've never had it as delicious as those enormous paella dishes they cook outside on. Copious amounts of oil and plenty of time and patience are the keys to a good paella.

johnnyskeleton

astonaidan wrote: »

Ok guys, Im going to try up my skills in the culinary field, would anyone recommend something to learn to cook, any suggestion welcome

What kind of food do you like and what can you already cook? I take it you can cook yourself a dinner but want to start doing something a bit impressive.

A good task is to go to a good butcher counter and get somethig you wouldnt normally buy and try to construct a meal from it? So, you buy a venison haunch, having never cooked it before, and see what comes to mind. Maybe get some cooking wine, green pepper cons, green bell peppers, pink onions, chestnut mushrooms, garlic and some fresh dill and parsely. You might then decide to go for a nice braise or stew with a bit of a kick.

Another way to get creative is to set yourself a very low budget e.g. €5 to feed 4, exclude packet sauces. Go to Lidl/Aldi and buy whatever meat is on for €2, two veg for 49c each and then youve €2 left to play with (assuming that oil, salt, pepper and rice/potatoes are already bought and so dont reduce the budget. Maybe its chicken so you get some red wine vinegar and make a bootleg coc au vin? Or if its fish, a cheap beer and some breadcrumbs can make an interesting batter. Or if you normally eat lots of meat try and make a vegetarian dish with lentils, chickpeas etc.

Another option is to try to replicate resteraunt/take away food. It might sound silly at first but trying to duplicate the taste of a mcdonalds cheese burger from scratch is quite difficult. But its an adventure that lets you see what basic ingredients do to the flavour of the meal.

One thing im trying to do lately is to cook dinner without salt or oil (obviously also without sugar, cream butter etc as well). The trick is to try to get something that is almost as nice as it normally is but in a muh healthier format. So far ive only succeeded when i blast the food with chillis, garlic, pepper etc but thats top easy a solution. Heston blumenthal recommends that in order to learn how salt enhances flavour (and also quite how much goes into restaurant food), cook a soup without salt and then at the end add soup in increasing quantities, tasting as you go. Its a very interesting way to learn how pretty much anything can taste good if you put enough of those ingredients in, and how much can be put in while still remaining subtle. Likewise, try a stew without browning the meat before putting it in. The difference in both taste and texture are considerable.

I also like trying cooking with things we normally wouldnt think to put in a main, like chocolate, plums, granny smith apples, coffee grinds, baking soda etc.

Somrtimes its good to go back to basics and you realise that some kitchen skills have fallen into disuse. I tried to make gravy the other nght for the first time in years and realised id lost the knack.

Or, in the same vein as going back to basics, cut a steak into a few parts and then cook in a small amount of butter, then walnut oil, then sesame oil, each time with no other condiments. Or the same cut of steak, one a cheap supermarket variety and the other an organic craft butcher cut. Is the latter twice as tasty as the former?

Getting some gadgets can be fun too. I got a sous vide here recently and, while it is not the revolutionary tool it is cracked up to be, its fun to use and great for getting rare but tender meat. Id like to try a thermomix but they are too expensive to justify a punt.

Playing around with presentation, even if youre cooking just for yourself, can also add much needed novelty into your cooking. It also produces interesting results. You might pair unusual foods because they have complementary colours but might or might not taste nice together (broccoli and cranberries, anyone?). It can also help portion control because if you try to emulate restaurant presentation usually less is more, or if you seeve dinner on a slate you can't have a big slop of greasy sauce dripping off the side.

Abother great trick is cooking for different people. You can learn to trade off between something that everyone will eat but no one will remember after too long vs churning out a belter that only 1 in 5 people will enejoy (like proper jerk chicken with a tonne of scotch bonnet).

mynameis905

If you're just starting out you could begin with simple, easy to cook stuff that is impossible to fúck up. Soups, stews and casseroles are easy to make and require minimal investment in time, energy and tools. If I was going to recommend one recipe it would be a boeuf bourguignon. Might feel a bit extravagant to toss in a whole bottle of wine into a stew but trust me it's worth it. Doesn't have to be expensive wine but a good hearty Bordeaux or Malbec for a tenner or so will be fine. You'll need a glass to go into yourself and the rest for the stew. Cook it. Win everything.

Sleepy

A crock pot / slow cooker is the best investment you can make towards making cheap, healthy, tasty food with next to no skill and there are millions of recipes on-line to try out.

baby and crumble

I was just about to post a recommendation for a slow cooker. They're available in Argos for next to nothing and they make life really easy. One of my fave recipes is meatballs. Lidl do a great pack of beef meatballs for about €2. Put them (uncooked) into the slow cooker with a tin of chopped tomatoes, a carton of tomato passata, choped mushrooms, chopped onions, chopped peppers, a jelly stock cube, some oregano, some tomato ketchup and some worchester sauce. Stir, and leave to cook on low for 8-10 hours.

When you get home from work you need 15 minutes to cook some spaghetti and you're done.

Pinterest can be great for looking up recipes, lots of cool options.